Thank you to everyone who reviewed for such lovely comments and enthusiasm.
This chapter is dedicated to ..0. (Hope this works) who I tried to dedicate the last one to.
Warning: some stuff in this chapter may be traumatic to some people. Read at your own risk and please don't have nightmares.
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It was a long time before I could lift myself from the floor, and when I did, I felt drained and empty. Peter's emotional battering ram had left me aching inside my chest. My head felt heavy, like lead. And yet my thoughts flew like sprites, assessing and reassessing Peter's emotions. How could they be real? How did he learn to make me feel that, if it wasn't real? How could you possibly love another person so much you would give up your whole life to save them? It made no sense to me, and I had been around for hundreds of years. Surely, if an emotion like that existed, I would have felt it before.
Peter must have tricked me, I thought, and yet I was glad I'd let him go. It gave me some sort of strange fluttery feeling in my throat and stomach whenever I remembered Peter's emotions towards Charlotte. Sort of like a sickness, but in a pleasant way.
It was Maria that made me finally get up; she was calling impatiently for me. I pushed my erratic thoughts away as I ascended the stairs.
"Did you get them all, Jasper?" Maria trilled, a smug light in her eye. She knew I hadn't, and she also knew the discomfort to my pride that saying I had missed two would cause.
Instead of complaining, I humoured her, "No."
"Why not, sweetness?"
I stiffened slightly at the emasculation she so obviously intended.
"Two of them joined up and got past me, it was an error of judgement, a miscalculation," I answered shortly. I did not want to go into any more detail, lest she find out that I had let them go willingly.
"Now if you can't handle two newborn vampires, Jasper, maybe you are not the right man for my little mission," Maria giggled.
My eyes narrowed. "Of course I can handle two newborns, Maria," I snapped. However much I adored Maria, I just could not stand jibes against my fighting skills. "Surely you know me better."
"Then I can't understand how you let these two go," Maria replied in the same tone. "It is very disappointing, Jasper. You know I count on you." Then she paused, and her eyes fell modestly to pick at the threads of her long skirts. She looked up at me through her lashes, her eyes sad, "Who would protect ladies like me if it were not you?"
Yes, that's right, I thought bitterly; play up on my proper southern upbringing. "Of course I can protect you Maria," I urged, feeling shame that she had to even ask me.
"Lovely," she replied smugly, her mood changing as quickly as the thud of a human heartbeat. "Then you will go to Houston for me now, and scout the vampire's territory. Find me a weak spot, Commander."
"How will I protect you when I'm not near you?" I asked, beginning to worry about her safety against my will. Even though I was angry with her, she had been my companion for over a hundred years, and she was so small, so frail...
"Attack is the best form of defence, Jasper," Maria crooned, "You should know that."
An hour later, I was ready to go. I hadn't accumulated many possessions at all, even though I had spent too many years to count in this world. A few clothes and a pocket watch were all I had to my name. I didn't have any money, because I didn't need it. Anything I wanted, I took, for who was strong enough to stop me?
I had dressed in the grey long-coat Maria had given me as a reward for a past deed. She had stolen it from a high-ranking official in the army— it was a Major's coat. I almost prized it more than my own skin. I had pulled on my leather boots, pants and white shirt, and clipped on a badge I had earned in the Confederate Army during the Civil War that was the only thing I had from when I was a human. Maria called me one last time before I departed. I didn't expect to come back, so I had left nothing of mine in the house.
"Oh, Jasper, so handsome," Maria purred when I came into the room. "The grey of that coat makes your hair look edible."
My eyebrows rose at the strange word. I hadn't known that was an adjective for describing hair; I wondered where Maria had learnt it.
"I almost don't want to let you go," she murmured softly under her breath, probably forgetting that I could hear her. Her small hand stroked across my chest to pick at the badge I had pinned on my lapel.
"Don't you think that particular trinket is a bit old? Why don't I replace it with something of my own? Something a bit less... dated," Maria asked, picking at my Confederate badge.
A low growl rumbled in my chest. That badge meant a great deal to me— it symbolised myself as a human. It was the only thing I had left, the only thing I had earned as an equal with everyone else, for a vampire could take anything he wanted without effort. I had worked for that badge, sweated over it, bled over it...
"No," I growled, refusing point-blank to part with the badge.
"But I want a little representation," Maria argued, her bottom lip sticking out in a pout. "You will wear something of mine, even if you wont part with that old badge."
And she pulled off the ring she always wore around her neck on a little chain, and slipped it onto my finger. My fist clenched in protest. It was a simple silver band, very valuable, for silver was hard to come by... yet it was tarnished and scraped, the surface marked with deep rivets like scars.
"I haven't taken that off for two hundred years," Maria informed me, "It's scratched so much because its been in contact with vampires trying to rip my hands off," she giggled. Her fingers pried at my hand, tilting the ring towards the candle flame. Shadows lingered in the indents of the surface. "See, it's just like your skin," she murmured in amusement.
I took back my hand, but didn't remove the ring.
"What will you do while I'm gone?" I asked shortly, changing the subject.
"Why, create myself a new army! I feel like a change," Maria purred.
I wondered if that was why she was sending me on such a suicidal mission... because she wanted a change?
"You can go now, Jasper," she said suddenly; my change in conversation had obviously broken her out of her distraction. "Return to me with information in two weeks or I will presume you are dead and carry on without you."
Charming.
The soft light of morning was settling over fields of hay and corn, its dusky sweetness gently illuminating everything in gold. I was hiding, (difficult when the land was nothing but flat fields for miles), crouched amongst the yellow stalks of corn in a farmer's field. I had left Maria hours ago, and had travelled far before the sun had risen. It was shining so brightly that if anyone caught me out they would know for sure I wasn't human. Hence the hiding.
This, however, left me with the prospect of hours milling over 'Peter's emotion', which I had now taken to calling it. It hadn't left my mind properly since he'd shown me it. I hated puzzles I couldn't decipher.
I found myself humming a war tune from my army days as the day wore on and the sun beat softly down on me. I had rolled up the sleeves of my coat so the sun could touch my granite skin, which gave me a deliciously warm feeling throughout my body. I felt in higher spirits than I had for a long, long time. This feeling left when the sun did.
As it descended below the horizon, my body cooled quickly without the sun's rays. I mourned the loss of its heat as I pulled myself to my feet. At least now in the dark I could make some progress, I told myself. Within ten minutes of the departure of the sun, I was my usual self again. I began to run, my feet flying over the ground, marking out a path in the destroyed corn. As I sped past the farmer's house and onto the road again, my throat erupted like a bonfire and the most delicious smell assailed my nose. I felt venom flowing fresh in my mouth, and simply ground to a halt. It was coming from behind me; from the farmer's house... my feet instinctively veered me towards the source of this delectable aroma, pounding over the ground. My whole body yearned for a taste, my muscles coiled like springs, my chest rising and falling with the intake of the intoxicating smell.
When I reached the small, timber, one-floored house, I climbed in through a shuttered window-hole in the wall, where the scent was strongest. My sharp eyes picked out the details of the room in a second, but ignored everything but the person lying on the bed, curled up, asleep. Her hair was spread across the pillow in a fan, her arms tucked under her small body. She looked about sixteen, the farmer's daughter. My eyes followed a line from her chestnut hair down to her bare feet, poked out from under the blanket, and came to a rest on her throat. I could almost feel the wet beat of her heart resounding in the air. Warmth pulsed out in waves from her body, wrapping around me, touching my skin. This was even better than the sunlight.
I crept forward, my footsteps soundless. She didn't stir even when I leaned over her, blocking the light of the moon through her small window. My shadow fell across her body, morphing it into a grotesque, miss-shapen mass. And yet I could draw the curves and indents of her throat by memory, watching it so closely as I watched. It flexed and softened with every breath, her chest moving with every heartbeat, pulsing wet, hot heat... I groaned in agony. I had to taste her.
I fell to my knees by her bed, and swept her hair back from her neck. My cold touch did not wake her. She had a freckle on her throat— a sweet mark that I wanted to bite. My mouth descended to her skin, my teeth gently grazing her throat. Christ, she was so warm. Suddenly I couldn't wait any longer, and my teeth attacked her neck with ferocity. At once the rush of hot blood poured into my mouth, and my eyes rolled closed in ecstasy. A groan of gratification rumbled in my chest, and my hands gripped hard at her neck, holding her down.
She had woken as soon as my teeth had broken her skin, mauling half her neck in my excitement. I clamped my hand over her mouth before her scream came, and held her body down as she thrashed and bucked on the bed. Delicious, salty blood filled slid down my throat. Yet all too soon the flow slowed, almost to a stop. I pressed harder on her, trying to coax more blood out of her, my hands roughly bruising the skin of her neck and breast. She wasn't moving any more.
In anger, I sunk my fingers into her skin, my nails breaking it. Why wasn't there any more blood? I couldn't have drunk it all already! Yet nothing more was coming, and I growled in frustration. I pulled my fingers out of her skin and flung her back down onto her bed, wanting to crush something. There was no use staying here— her parents were both old, and their blood wasn't half as appetising.
I had jumped out of her window and was crossing the yard when I noticed a small animal sound of protest and obstruction under my feet. I stopped at once, looking down at the little kitten I had kicked by accident. It had a little worked leather collar around its throat, with a dainty wooden carved bell attached to it. Its silky black fur had been brushed until it was shiny and there was not a hair out of place. I was at once flooded by remorse that almost knocked me to my knees— this little loved kitten had obviously belonged to the girl I had just sucked dry.
It had been very wrong to kill her.
And then I felt ridiculous for even feeling that way; humans were there for us to prey on! They were our natural nourishment, made just so delicious so that we could taste them!
I was conflicted more than I had ever been. Guilt rose up in me like bile, and I choked on it. Yet it went against my very self to feel this way.
Stop it, stop it! Stop being so stupid. They are there for us to eat.
...But not to suck dry, to maul, to attack... I thought at the same time, my memory recalling the bloody sheets around her broken body. I had probably broken her spine.
I couldn't leave her body for her parents to find.
My feet carried me up the wall and through her window again in seconds. I lifted her body gingerly, and ripped off her bloody sheets from the bed. It took me seconds to skirt the house and find a patch of trees where I might dig a hole without being seen. At vampire speed my hands tore through the dirt. I had to make this deep, or when her body rotted, scavengers might come to dig her up.
When I had finished, I lowered her body into the hole, along with the sheets. I quickly plucked some wildflowers to lie atop her body before I began re-piling in the dirt. I couldn't look at her face, her glassy eyes.
And once I had finished, I found myself back in her room, grabbing the paper and quill beside her bed, scrawling a note...
Dear Mother and Father,
Do not worry about me, I am happy. I have left to marry a man I love, and I wont return. You don't know him, so don't try and search for me, because you wont find me. I'm moving across the country and I wont write again. But always know that you mean more than the world to me.
I didn't know her name, so I didn't sign it. The paper fluttered to land on her bed as I jumped from the window, and fled the farm. Tortured images of her broken body, her makeshift grave and her little lost kitten flooded my mind as I ran, and ran, and ran.
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Sorry about that, but it had to be done to show how Jasper is beginning to get depressed about killing. And I know you all want Alice, she's coming, I promise. The events of the story may be altered a little bit, but I promise I wont alter anything about Jasper and Alice's meeting and relationship, that's too perfect to be altered!
I hope you liked this chapter, and please continue to tell me what you think.
CullenLove x